All About Scullery, Fremont East’s Next Watering Hole

The next bar to open Downtown happily thumbs its nose at the notion that there’s no culture in this burg. And then it will sip a nice Chianti. Check it out!

1. Scullery, the next project by Michael Cornthwaite’s Future Restaurant Group (Downtown Cocktail Room, The Beat), will open mid-October on the northeast corner of the Ogden, a two-story 2,200-square-foot loft-like space featuring a bar and flex theater.

2. A partner in Scullery, the Downtown Project will handle daytime booking (think educational talks and meetings), while Cornthwaite’s peeps will take on the night with live bands, comedy, films and private events. (We’re already commissioning fliers for our rad new goth party, Skullery.)

3. Future Restaurant Group beverage director Jeremy Merritt is doing the culinary-leaning beverage program for the sunlit eight-seat bar designed with women in mind: Hours will skew earlier, cocktails lighter and there will be a greater emphasis on wine. So, ladies, the place won’t reek of last night’s party and neither will you.

4. If you never read Cinderella, a scullery is a kitchen prep space. “When you’re socializing at your friend’s house, you’re often in the kitchen; it’s the most comfortable place to hang out,” Cornthwaite says. The bar will be kitted out with more kitchen equipment than usual, more work surfaces and a refrigerated prep table, all the better to put out freshly pickled ingredients for a cocktail menu that has an emphasis on gin and amaros. And since there’s no smoking in the kitchen, there’s no smoking here, either.

5. Beyond the eight bar stools, Scullery will offer banquettes for eight more, a super-intimate nook for two (don’t get any ideas) and three completely private booths for up to six. In the back the flex space theater seating can be configured into rows, cabaret groupings—whatever is required for the performance.

6. Expected to open right on the heels of Scullery is Inspire in the former 7-Eleven space on the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Fremont Street. This, too, is a theater space, but for polished A-List talent the likes of TED Talks; Cornthwaite says that Dave Grohl’s documentary Sound City will be among the inaugural events. Cornthwaite’s coffeehouse The Beat will provide the joe.

7. Never one to be idle, Cornthwaite will follow up Scullery and Inspire with his contributions to Downtown’s Container Park project: The Boozery (a saloon he calls a “blue-collar, sort of southern-inspired, fun, come-as-you-are bar”), the Beatnik (a mini Beat—awww!) and Pork ‘n Beans (a sausage, beer and beans joint with chef-partner Kerry Simon). These venues join the Downtown Project’s collaborations with Bin 702 wine bar, Pinches Tacos and Big Ern’s BBQ. The goal right now is for everything to be open before the Life Is Beautiful Festival, October 26-27.

Long before the Fremont Street Experience, Neonopolis and Tony Hsieh, the City of Las Vegas had grand plans for reviving the city’s core. Three decades later, we look back at what might have been—and what is today.